Seamless stocking.



R. W. SCOTT.

SEAMLESS STOCKING.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 2. I915.

Patented July 17, 1917.

LSSSJTTT. 1

ion.

ROBERT 'W. SCOTT, OE BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 1hSSIGN0R TO SCOTT & WILLIAMS, INCORPORATED, O15 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORATION (JP-MASSACHUSETTS.

snrnss s'rockrne.

The improvements of recent years in the manufacture of circular knit seamless stockings have made them desirable articles of wear, but there still exists in the minds of some conservative purchasers a habit of choice in-favor of the type of stocking having a seam at the back of the leg, which prejudice is not based upon any present advantage or merit in the seamed stockings,

however great such advantage may have been at past times. Unthinking purchasers still depend upon superficial characteristics of the once superior sort of stocking to indicate to them a desirable article of purchase, without examining the stocking for the other structural features upon which a more intelligent choice might be based. Such persons usually prefer, when they can be induced to make a decision on their respective merits, that type of tocking having no seam at the back, which has manifest advanta es as an article of wear. The existence o a large body of prejudice of this sort in the minds of the public unfairly militates against the sale of circular knit artlcles of hosiery. One purpose of my present invention is to provide in such hosiery an imitation of the superficial appearance pf the stockings of the other type, so that circular knit stockings made according to my invention will not be. unfairly associated in the minds of such purchasers with a crude and inferior class of goods, but may be taken upon their relative merit as garments.

One of the appearances, the absence of which leads the uninformed public to believe the stocking is an inferior-stocking, 1s a mark at the back of the leg incidental to making on a flat-fashioning or straight machine, caused by the transfer of loops of one wale to loops of an adjacent wale. Tn the Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed November 2, 1915. Serial Ito. 59,315.

usual article these marks occur-at the back of the leg above the ankle, on either side of the seam marking the back central line of the stocking. When finished. for sale, such full fashioned stockings are folded on the line of the seam, and the mark of these transfers is conspicuous and distinctive.

T will now describe a seamless stocking having an imitation of such marks. In the accompanying drawings,

Figure l is a side view of a stocfing as folded when finished and ready for sale;

gig. 2 is an enlarged detail of the fabric; an

Fig. 8 is'a back view of the tapered part of the leg.

The stocking 1 shown may have,,in commen with other circular knit articles of hosiery, the same number of needle-Wales throughout, but the fabric by reason of changes in the length of stitch or the kind of yarn or otherwise is made permanently wider at the calf of the leg 2 than at the ankle 3, the fabric tapering between from one width to the other Width. u

At the back of the leg and at the location of this taper and preferably in the same needle wales 4 lying a fixed distance from and on each side of the central back needle wale 5 on which the stocking is folded when finished and ready for sale, 1 form during manufacture marks 6, preferably-separated as shown, of a different texture from the remainder of the fabric, as made for instance by transferringloops from one needle wale to an adjacent needle wale, or by making a draw-stitch or group of draw-stitches, or by a tuck-stitch extending over two or more courses. I prefer the latter structure, which as illustrated in Fig. 2, may be made by accumulating loops or failure to cast off during three or four courses with the result of showing enlarged loops 7, 8, and eyelet holes 9, 10, 11 and 12 at the surface o the fabric.

In some cases ll associate the imitation narrowing mark so formed with any of the well-known mock-seam structures formed at the central wales at the back of the leg, for instance by omitting a needle as illustrated at 14 in Fig. 2.

What I claim is:

1. A seamless stocking having therein at the back of the leg a structural variation of the knit fabric of which it is-cornposed, imitating the narrowing marks occurring in seamed or other narrowed stockings. v

2. A seamless stocking-having a tapered 5 leg having the same number of needle Wales therein throughout and separated structural marks occurring in the same needle-Wale on each side of and near .the'central back line of the stocking at the tapered portion only 10 thereof.

3. A seamless stocking having a tapered leg, a mock-seam at the back of-the leg, and

separated marks imitating transferred nar rowings' at either side of the mock scam in said tapered portion.

4. A seamless stocking having a tapered leg and tuck-stitch marks separated in the direction of the length of the stocking occurring in the same needle-Wale on each side of the central back line of the stocking at the tapered portion.

Signed by me at Boston, Massachusetts, this 30th day of October, 1915.

ROBERT W. SCOTT. 

